I Hate Toaster Strudel Commercials
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: Affection isn't always requited, people are not the only things you can mourn, but you can mourn them too, and Lysander might be just a little bit prone to seasickness. Written for owldistraction.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Four crappy one shots for owldistraction. One shots. As in the following chapters are not continuations of each other, nor related. Just kinda there. One-sided Lysander/Castiel in this first one here. I probably should've made sure that slash was alright first, before I just went with it...Sorry owldistraction. If you'd prefer me to take this part out/redo it, no problem. Oh, and the title is because I had the tube on in the background when I was writing this and it's true. I seriously hate the toaster strudel commercials. You know, the ones where the pastries have wings and there's that creepy ass blonde kid with the lederhosen? And he goes "Toaster strudel, yah?" And then I'm just NO! No, toaster strudel yah. **

"Why are we taking the stairs?"

"I already told you, the elevator's broken," Lysander murmured wearily. And of all times for it to be down, now was rather rotten luck. His apartment was on the third floor and Castiel was so drunk he could hardly take three steps without stumbling over himself on _level_ ground. Hence why Lysander was bringing him home in the first place. He couldn't leave him alone like this.

"That sucks," the redhead slurred. He nearly tripped over the next step and Lysander tightened his hold on his arm to steady him.

"It could be worse. We're almost there." And Lysander kept his hold tight until they reached the door. He let go to fish around in his pocket for the key. But then a firm warmth pressing against his neck startled him so suddenly that he nearly dropped said key.

"God, you smell good. You always smell this good, Lysander?" The ridge of Castiel's nose pushed into the skin right under the vein that pulsed and jumped with his rapidly quickening heartbeat. Lysander felt Castiel's nostrils flare as he inhaled his supposedly appealing scent and struggled to keep himself from flinching. This close, he irresistibly caught a trace of Castiel's scent as well. His real scent, not the dense odor of alcohol and marijuana that blighted his breath and clung to his clothes. Leather and basil. Lysander had to pull away before he choked on it.

"You're intoxicated." It was answer enough. Brusquely sliding the key into the lock, Lysander crossed the threshold and ushered Castiel along. His heart was still fluttering uneasily in his chest and he willed it to relax. But his heart wouldn't relax. It kept fluttering, betraying him once more just like it'd been doing since the moment he fell for his best friend.

"Tell me about it...Where's your bathroom again?" Red-rimmed charcoal eyes dazedly shifted to Lysander. Lysander felt just a little bit like smacking him because he's been here more than enough times to remember where the bathroom is, so if he's too damn drunk to remember that, he's really, really hit the bottle too many times.

But Lysander didn't even have time to answer before Castiel clumsily dashed for the kitchen sink and upheaved the liquidly contents of his stomach. Mentally wincing at the sounds, he shuffled across the kitchen tile and gathered back the redhead's damp tresses as his head dipped down again. The next twenty-three seconds felt quite a bit longer than so, and were rather unpleasant to say the least.

Castiel groaned and lifted his head, Lysander's fingers sliding out of his hair. He patted him on the back and turned on the faucet. The spray nozzle recently purchased for a decent price rinsed out the mess with ease, leaving the steel sparkling and clean. A presence pushed between Lysander's shoulders blades and kept him in place. Castiel's forehead, he realized after a heartbeat and stiffened accordingly.

His friend nuzzled his face in, and Lysander could feel his body heat through the material of his jacket. Castiel exhaled softly in contentment and one hand sluggishly raised and relaxed atop Lysander's shoulder. He paled as his gut harrowingly lurched forward. The contact felt intimate. It wasn't, it never would be, Castiel was simply uncoordinated and Lysander provided convenient support. But the way he was leaning into him _felt_ so, so painfully intimate.

With a sharp intake of breath, Lysander abruptly stepped off to the side. Castiel was instantly thrown off balance and ungraciously tottered forward.

"Sorry!" Lysander grabbed him by the collar a moment before he met the countertop face to face.

"S'all good," Castiel muttered and waved him off. "I'm gonna go lay down." He apparently had remembered the layout of Lysander's apartment, because he went staggering off down the hallway.

And then went for the last door on the right. "No, no." Lysander took his arm and steered him away. "That one's Leigh's room."

"Oops. Where's that guy at anyway? Haven't seen 'im in like a month."

"He's with Rosa. And you just saw him last week."

"Month, week. Whatever." Castiel shrugged and ineptly stumbled over the threshold of Lysander's bedroom, flopping down on his back on the cotton comforter.

"You should be on your side," Lysander informed him gently. "In case your system decides to reject any more of the alcohol you've consumed."

"Eh?"

"In case you vomit again."

"Hell, Lys, should've just said that in the first place. S'hard to understand you when you're being all classy. But don't worry 'bout that anyway. M'good." He made crooked hand motions that Lysander couldn't help finding amusing and a bit endearing.

"Alright. I'll come check on you in a little while." He turned and started out, only for a hand to catch him around the wrist and tug him back again. Castiel gruffly pulled him to the mattress.

"Where you going, huh? Was'sup with you? Being so tense. Didn't drink enough tonight?"

"I think you drank enough for the both of us," Lysander replied with a forced smile.

"Guess you're right," Castiel chuckled. His fingers uncurled from his wrist and slid back down to the mattress, lightly brushing Lysander's hand on the way. "Man, did you see Lynn tonight? I didn't know she could dance like that. God...That ass. You see that ass on her, Lys? I'm usu'ly more of a boob guy, but damn. That ass." He made a groping gesture and Lysander felt a tiny, unwelcome thorn of jealously penetrate his straining heart. Envy was a hideous thing and he cringed just knowing it a touch of it resided inside him, but it wasn't a feeling he could just get rid of. He couldn't get rid of any of his feelings. Things would be so much easier if it were as simple as that.

"She is certainly an attractive girl," he replied quietly. What else could he say?

"Yeah. I got a picture of her, you know? Rosalya gave it to me. I know it sounds kinda weird, but I think...I think I might love her, Lys. Like really love her. When I look at Lynn all that mush shit happens to my insides."

He loved her? He_ loved_ her? The assessment took a moment to process. Lysander could practically hear the fleshy, meaty rip as his heart was torn out of his chest. It must've bled and the blood must've been rising in his throat because the next thing he knew, his lungs were burning and something thick and hot was cutting off his air intake.

"I haven't felt like this since Debrah," Castiel continued on, words still slurring and tainted with the perfume of booze. "I just wanna be with her, you know? I wanna touch her. I wanna hold her hand. Make her smile. S'pretty embarrassing, but it's true. You can't tell her any of this, though. This is our little secret."

Lysander rapidly blinked back the beads of moisture in the corners of his eyes and swallowed down the tangled mass of emotion in his throat. "Our secret," he agreed. The words stung his tongue.

"Good." Castiel patted him on the hand and then inquisitively tilted his head to the side. He fixed Lysander with a glassy, curious gaze. "You ever been into anybody like that? With the whole mushy love thing and all?"

"Yes," he answered with fatigued honesty. "I have."

"Heh. I figured as much from some of your songs. They're so legit, they've gotta be written from experience. So who? Anybody I know?"

This entire conversation was torture. Like walking on razors and rolling in shattered glass. A pained noise rose in the back of Lysander's throat and he couldn't answer. He just shook his head and the lie would have to suffice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I just realized that today is November 22nd. Which means that it's Lysander's birthday. Which makes writing these so much more fun XD I still have other requests I'm working on, like Bought the Mango for NotAllThere21 and a yet-to-be posted Melody/Castiel fic for Paradoxical Weather Girl, so if either of you are reading this, worry not. I have not forgotten you~! This request just gets pushed to first priority because it's Lysander's freaking birthday. **

Lysander lifted his head from his pillow, blinking drowsily. The scent of coffee drifted in from under the door and pumped a touch of wakefulness in him, so he yawned and rolled off the mattress. He dragged himself out of the room and sluggishly shuffled down the hallway.

Leigh was in the kitchen, cup of java in one hand and buttered toast in the other. He was visibly surprised to see Lysander, started to say something, caught himself and then put his meager breakfast down. He took a pen and scrawled on the notepad on the table, and then slid it down to Lysander. The silver-haired male inclined his head and looked over the words.

'You're up early. Are you going to school today?'

Going to school? Lysander mentally laughed. What a pointless idea.

'No. I'm going back to bed. Where's the melatonin?' He passed the notepad back to his brother.

Leigh's lips twisted in a frown of disapproval and he looked at Lysander sharply as he wrote his reply. 'You don't need to be taking any of that this early in the morning.'

'I wasn't going to. I just want to know where it is for later.' He was being somewhat honest. If he could get back to sleep immediately, which he had a feeling he would be able to accomplish considering how early it was, then he wouldn't take any. But if he couldn't get back to sleep, well, a dose of melatonin it was.

Leigh didn't do anything for a moment, and then pointed to the top of the refrigerator with the pen.

Lysander nodded and padded back to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and plodded to the bed, wincing as he tread on something sharp. He took a step back and glanced down. His Broken Iris CD. It'd cracked down the middle under his weight, ruined beyond repair. Oh well. That was fine, Lysander couldn't listen to it anymore anyway. He was deaf.

He sighed and crawled back under the blanket, nestling his face into one pillow and pulling the other over his head. How long had it been since he'd lost his hearing, now? A month and a half? Two months? About that long. It felt so much longer. Idly, Lysander tried (not for the first time) to recall what the last thing he heard was before all sound had been stolen from him.

It was likely the delicate pitter-patter of raindrops against the window. The rain had been light that day, drizzling gently over the world and misting the air while the clouds blanketed the sky above in lovely hues of gray. Lysander would have been outside and enjoying such pleasant weather for himself, had he not been ailing. Nothing serious, just an ear infection. He'd been prescribed antibiotics, so he popped a few and a naproxen to curb off the discomfort and curled up to sleep it off.

Imagine his surprise when he'd woken up to a world with the mute button turned on. A rare reaction to the medication a grueling exam would later prove, one that only happened to approximately one in seven million people. One in seven million. A rarity indeed, a freak situation of the most atypical kind and Lysander just so happened to be that unfortunate one. And there was nothing at all anyone could do to fix it.

Lysander was crushed. Pitifully, plainly, irreparably crushed. Music was his life. Singing was his passion and his escape. When he sang he was separated from reality and achieved a state where everything felt right and nothing else mattered. His dream had forever been to become professional, and just like that it was snatched away from him. His hopes were slaughtered in his chest. They died and fell away, turning to unwanted acerbity in the pit of gut. He couldn't sing when he couldn't hear himself. He couldn't follow silent notes and hushed melodies.

He subsequently stopped talking. He was still capable of course, but it just didn't feel right. He could probably gauge his tone and volume through feeling, but he'd ever never know for sure and so talking didn't settle well with him.

Now he closed his lids and begged for sleep to take him. Unlike the multiple desperate pleas to get his hearing back, the universe did grant him that request.

* * *

Lysander wasn't sure how exactly long he was asleep, but when he woke up he knew it wasn't for long enough. He stretched and crossed his cluttered floor, making a beeline down the hallway. He decided he was going to do either one of two things.

One: Take a shower, then get out, take some melatonin and go back to sleep.

Two: Take some melatonin, go back to sleep, shower when waking up again.

Truth be told, sleeping was pretty much all Lysander did with his life now. He'd throw showering in because it felt nice, but he never really got cleaned up and went anywhere. The world had lost its appeal. Living had become a bleak occupation. Scratch that, he wasn't even really living anymore. He was just existing. Settling on option two, Lysander padded to the kitchen.

He was reaching for the sleep-aid when a flash of light on the counter caught his attention. His phone. He glanced down and picked it up. A new text message. Leigh most likely, who felt bad for leaving Lysander alone and made a habit of frequently checking in. He opened it.

'I'm at your door. Open up.'

Not Leigh. Castiel. His second guess. He stared at the screen for a very long moment, rather tempted to ignore him.

'I'm not home,' he sent after moderate deliberation.

'Yes you are. You never go anywhere anymore.' The response was almost instant. Leave it to Castiel to be so blunt. Though Lysander supposed on some level he appreciated that. He didn't want to be tiptoed around.

'I brought food.' The next message popped up before he could respond and he gave in, trudging over and opening the door.

Castiel handed him a styrofoam carryout box and a paper cup with a bendy straw, sauntering in and plopping down on the couch. He made himself right at home and Lysander opened the box he held with nominal interest. Chicken schwarma. He splurged. How considerate. Lysander plodded over and sat beside him, digging in with the provided plastic spork.

He didn't really feel hungry, but he supposed his must be. He hadn't eaten anything today, after all.

The meal was filling, but tasteless. Now that he was deaf, his remaining senses were supposed to be stronger, weren't they? His taste buds should've been at their peak. But the food held no flavor, and the drink could have been cola or ginger ale or neither and he wouldn't have known the difference. He thanked Castiel anyway.

'I'm going to take Demon down to the beach. You wanna come?'

Lysander looked up from his phone and lifted a brow. 'You know I don't.'

'Why not? It's got to beat wallowing around all day.' The redhead's expression said as much as the text.

Lysander simply shook his head. He didn't want to leave and go out into the world where every noise was lost to him. He used to be one of those people that appreciated all the beautiful, overlooked sounds in the world. The wind swishing through the trees, the tiny splash of water dropping into a puddle, the hum of an insect's wings or the high-pitched chirp of a bird. All the small noises people took for granted, he never had and now they were silenced.

Castiel ran a hand through his hair and went typing away and Lysander supposed he expected what came next.

'You haven't left your apartment in over two months! You've been moping around and sleeping every day away for the past eight weeks! Your parents are worried about you. Leigh is worried about you. Rosa is worried about you. I am worried about you! You can't just close yourself off forever! That isn't you!'

"Oh, spare me the lecture!" Lysander snapped with bitterness and volume he was sure, though he couldn't hear himself. He threw his phone and it bounced on the carpet before landing. It probably broke, but he didn't really care. Honestly, did Castiel think he didn't know that!? Lysander knew there were people worried about him, he knew that brooding and shutting out the world was not like him. But he just isn't himself anymore. He used to be an optimist. He used to see the glass half-full and look on the bright side, because the world was much richer that way and things would probably go a lot smoother for you if you focused on that brightness.

But now...This? This? How...Could he look on the bright side now? There was no upside to this! He was deaf! Music was stolen away from him. His goals and his passion were ripped right out of his grasp. It left a hole. A huge gaping vacancy in his life that nothing could fill. This was one of the cruelest, most torturous curveballs life could whip at him, and for once he dropped his mitt.

Lysander didn't want to climb under the covers and seal himself off from everything, but what else could he do? He was broken. He felt dead. The light in his life had dimmed and gone out and he couldn't get it back. He wanted to be stronger. He wanted to move on and pacify everyone's worries. But he just...He couldn't. He just couldn't. He was a cracking shell of a person and much too brittle to pull himself back together.

Castiel was still staring at him with an expression Lysander couldn't quite distinguish and he quickly shook his head.

"Leave me alone," he demanded. His throat felt like sandpaper and he wasn't sure if it was because he'd shouted or because he hadn't spoken in so long. "Go home." Lysander stood up and fled the room, returning to his mattress and burrowing under the comforter. He pulled the pillow over his head for the second time that day and regretted that he hadn't taken the melatonin first.


	3. Chapter 3

"Father and Mother are coming over tomorrow. I think they might stay for awhile, with all that's happened," Lysander murmured tiredly. He glanced down to where his brother stretched out on the couch, looking up to the ceiling with dulled cocoa eyes.

"Please say something," Lysander pleaded softly. "Or eat something. I know you haven't." He didn't want to push Leigh, but his brother's silence and lack of response to anything at all were taking its toll on him. He'd already lost his sister and now it felt like he was losing his brother in the same fell swoop.

"Leigh...She wouldn't want you to do this to yourself," he breathed, swallowing before his voice could crack. He could feel the lump in his throat forming again (it'd never really gone away).

"She isn't here," Leigh deadpanned. The first words he'd spoken in five days. It chilled Lysander to the bone to heard how flat and defeated he was.

"But you are."

Leigh's eyes flitted to him, rested on his bicolored ones for a moment, and then drifted back up to the ceiling. "Barely," he said quietly and then he didn't say anything more. The air between them was already thick with tears both shed and unshed and right then it grew too suffocating for Lysander to bear, and so he withdrew. He padded down the hall and went to his room.

The picture of a beaming Rosalya on his nightstand greeted him. She was smiling in the picture, her amber eyes dancing with livelihood. Someone (probably Peggy) had taken it at the concert that night, and Rosalya had been so ecstatic that the project she'd gleefully played her role in had been a success. He took the picture and gingerly traced the frame with his fingertips.

He wanted to remember her like she was in this picture, not like she'd been in the last pictures of her he was forced to look at. The crime photos. Whoever killed her had stabbed out her beautiful eyes, bashed in her neat little nose, and slashed her mouth from ear to ear. And that was just the killing damage. Beforehand, she'd been bound by the wrists and ankles with barbed wire and lashed repeatedly with a whip that left raised, puckered mars across every stretch of her flawless fair skin.

Those photos. Lysander would never forget the gruesome, horrible images of what some sick, deranged savage had done to her. He shuddered as he failed to keep them from flashing through his mind one after the next and his hands tightened around the picture he held. As hard as he tried, he could not focus on it and instead kept remembering the hideous photos he didn't want to see. He gagged and nearly vomited, fresh tears streaming and splattering on the glass that kept the prettier picture protected.

Lysander was not violent. On the grand scale of things, he was more pacifistic than the majority of the population.

But if he ever learned who had done that to Rosalya, who had brutalized and killed his wonderful, radiant sister (Rosa was his sister, not by blood, but he'd always loved her as so. She had been his sister and he had been her Lys-Baby, and that could not be argued) they would have suffered the most terrible death he could imagine. He would massacre the monster who hurt her. Leave them even more disfigured than they left her and dispose of them in the sewers for the rats to gnaw on.

His stomach churned and his heart thrummed with despair. She'd been missing for two weeks, confirmed dead for six days, and he could still scarcely fathom that she was gone. He wouldn't see her anymore. She wouldn't hug him or ruffle his hair and call him by that childish nickname that could only be endearing when it passed her sweet lips. Leigh could no longer propose to her, like Lysander knew he'd been planning to.

The concept that she was no longer with them was hardly something he could grasp, but it was true indeed and for all the nightmares that the crime photos had given him, perhaps he owed them the ability to cement the reality of what had happened.

But the reason he'd been shown such photos was nearly as dreadful as their content. He had been a suspect. He and Leigh had both been suspects. The police couldn't find a motive and came up with this little loathsome, ridiculous theory: Rosalya had been two-timing on them both and one of them got pissed off and did away with her. Disgusting! Lysander had nearly attacked the interviewing officer who'd suggested as much, Leigh _had_ attacked actually him and snarled colorful word after word that Lysander hadn't even known were in his brother's vocabulary.

And then his brother hadn't said anything at all until tonight. Lysander gently pressed his lips to the picture of her smiling face and tasted his own tears against the glass. He laid on his side and held it tenderly to his chest. He a suspect? Leigh a suspect? How fucking ridiculous. They weren't now, they'd been cleared based on solid alibis and inconclusive DNA, but the fact of the matter was still that such a notion was the most cockamamie bullshit he'd ever head. No one who knew Rosalya could do something like that to her. No one who'd seen her smile, or held her hand, or laughed with her could have harmed a single hair on her head. Whoever did this must not have known her. And they were not worthy enough to eat shit.

What motive could there be to do something like that!? What motive could possibly exist to torment a person that way, especially someone as wonderful as his sister!? Why!? Why her!? Lysander's heart wrenched painfully in his chest. He didn't understand at all. He couldn't even begin to comprehend. All he could do was clutch her photograph and mourn until every sob was exhausted out of him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Well this is like going into crack territory. But alas, tis what I've come up with. And at first I was going to use a giant squid and then I just paused and I realized...That's too much DX **

The ocean was indeed one of the most mesmerizing places on the planet. An odd place for a field trip though, Lysander thought, but Sweet Amoris had always been a little bit odd so he hadn't really questioned it. And why question an opportunity to explore the sea anyway?

But unfortunately, as much as Lysander loved the salty bite of seawater in the air and found beauty in the endless rolling waves, he was not immune to motion sickness. Rather perceptible to it, in fact. Which led him above deck in the middle of the night and leaning over the side of the boat. He ground his teeth and willed his stomach to quell, though he felt himself greening.

He was concentrating so hard on not vomiting into the ocean that he didn't notice how far he was leaning over. One particularly rocky wave was all it took to send him overboard. He crashed into the icy depths head first and was swallowed up by the black abyss. Jolting at the shock of the cold, Lysander quickly righted himself and paddled to surface, thrusting his head above the water.

Lysander coughed out a stream of frigid, salty water and heaved, intaking a breath so deep his lungs burned. His eyes snapped to the slowly drifting boat. Not good. But still, no problem. He'd just call for help. Which he did. He shouted as loud as he could. But no one came to his aid and the boat continued bobbing along in the direction the waves carried it. It was quite surprising how fast the tugging and swaying of a calm ocean could carry a boat.

When calling for assistance proved futile, Lysander merely tried keeping up with the boat. He swam after it as fast as he could. But his clothes were soaked with the ocean and oh, it was freezing. He might as well have been swimming through snow. His limbs were growing heavy and numb with the effort of stroking through the powerful waves. His clothes clung to his frame and grew heavy as they absorbed the icy water, weighing him down.

Saltwater splashed into his face and flowed over his tongue. He almost choked on it with every breath he took and it became apparent that drowning was more possible than catching up with the boat. Lysander gave up on swimming and decided to float instead. He was understandably nervous, but keeping a level head was the best way to approach situations like this. He could it handle it, he just had to think clearly and calmly.

As far as the waves had carried the boat, it was still no more than fifteen meters away. That was plenty close enough for him to be noticed the next time someone stepped out on the deck. And not only that, but it was the waves that were carrying the boat away. So logically, they would sweep him up in the same direction. His absence would be noticed soon and someone would come out and see what had happened.

Lysander shivered as a breeze ghosted over the exposed portion of his chest. It felt like it was growing even colder. But it could've been worse. It could've been a lot worse. He closed his eyes and chewed his lower lip, forcing himself to focus on something other than how glacial the ocean was. Music was the first thing to come to mind. Oh yes, that was always something to focus on. As far as writing songs went, he'd recently fallen into a bit of a dry spell. Inspiration was eluding him and what he did think of, he couldn't word together quite right.

But this whole falling over the boat and into the ocean thing was perfect inspiration! Now this was something he could write a song about. Songs really came out better when one wrote them from personal experience. They were more profound that way because truth was weaved within the lyrics.

A firm tug on his arm pulled Lysander from his thoughts. He glanced over, blood turning colder than the water. The first thing he saw was the classic dorsal fin that trademarked every Jaws movie.

The next thing Lysander saw were the actual jaws of the shark as they parted. Row after row of sawlike teeth glinted in the moonlight, smeared with something dark. And then he saw it. The mangled lower half of his arm, impaled on the shark's bottom rows of teeth. He hadn't even felt the pain, but there is was. Bone glinting in the same eerie manner as the marine animal's teeth and ragged muscle bleeding into scraps of his shredded jacket sleeve. Lysander screamed.

As soon as the horrified sound was torn from his lips, the pain registered. It was sudden and scorching as though a flame had engulfed his massacred limb. So strikingly opposite to the freezing sensation of the ocean's grasp. The shark's mouth closed around his arm again and with one jerk of its huge, boxy head, it ripped the limb right off. A strangled cry of pain left Lysander's throat, but no one heard it. He rapidly tried to swim away, legs flailing and remaining arm awkwardly windmilling. Wild-eyed with shock, he caught the eye of the beast. A shiny, pure black golfball in the middle of a humongous head.

It lunged and snapped its jaws around his torso, its teeth shredding through his flesh as easily as a cleaver cut through hamburger. It shook him like a dog shaking a bone with such force that Lysander's teeth rattled and stars shot across his vision. Seawater and blood swirled together and filled his throat, leaving him sputtering and hacking as the aquatic predator feasted on him. Its formidable teeth split skin from muscle and munched through bone with a startling ease.

Lysander screamed for a third time when half of his upper-body had been raggedly ripped away and devoured by the shark. It was the last sound he would ever utter, a weakening, long, piteous yowl of pure agony. Blood turned as black as the ocean under the starless sky pooled around and lapped at the shark's fins. Unwound intestines shortly followed suit and the animal indulged in its meal as Lysander expired, one lone rivulet of blood rolling down the left corner of his mouth.

* * *

**All done now. I hope you enjoyed, owldistraction :D**

**And Happy Birthday, Lysander~! **


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